However, due to live coverage of Wimbledon, MotoGP will not be airing live on BBC Two tomorrow. As with past occurrences where this has happened (such as Qatar in the past few years), it means British Eurosport is allowed to air MotoGP live as BBC will only be broadcasting it on the Red Button.

As for the warm-up, I do not remember Eurosport broadcasting Moto3 or Moto2 (even in their previous form 125cc and 250cc) warm-up’s before, so nice to see them broadcasting that too.

For viewers without access to Eurosport, the three races are live on BBC’s Red Button service from 09:45, with the MotoGP race repeated at 12:30 on BBC Two on Sunday (it’s usual timeslot). The current contract between British Eurosport and BBC expires at the end of the 2013 season.

After a fantastic European Grand Prix, it’s time for Formula 1 to head home. And that means it is time for the British Grand Prix. While Sky are pulling out the stops with Classic F1 in the run up to the race, the same cannot be said for BBC. Due to coverage of Wimbledon, both Qualifying and the Race are on BBC Two, with only the Race Build-Up on BBC One.

As announced at the end of their European Grand Prix show, there is an extra F1 Show on Thursday 5th July, with a two hour build-up to the race on Sunday. Although I have not heard anything concrete, I would expect an increased on-site presence for Silverstone from both the News and F1 team, maybe even with a studio there aside from the Sky Pad, as going on air at 11:00 would be when the Porsche Supercup cars are still on track.

On BBC, there is an extra guy in the pit-lane for Radio 5 Live, former McLaren mechanic Mark Priestley is alongside Jennie Gow. 5 Live also have race car driver Tiffany Chittenden alongside them for the weekend. Finally, don’t be surprised if the F1 Forum overruns, as it is coming live from the main stage as Silverstone, so if you’re going, you may be caught on camera! I’ve also added Inside F1, presented by Lee McKenzie, below the poll for anyone interested.

The schedules above are now confirmed, so should not change. I’ve also added BBC’s MotoGP coverage for the Sunday as that is partly the reason why the F1 build-up is on BBC One. IndyCars and a screening of the Senna film is also above.

It’s the end of another month, and in the month of June we’ve seen two fantastic races. Lewis Hamilton won the Canadian Grand Prix, overtaking Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in the closing stages due to differing pit-stop strategies; while Alonso won the European Grand Prix, benefiting from Vettel’s alternator problem. So how did that affect the Twitter standings? Of course it did not affect Vettel at all, Vettel is Twitterless, so to say. As is Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher. Here goes…

The only change in the table above is that Sergio Perez is back in front of Pastor Maldonaldo, albeit the gap is very close between the two drivers (not for the first time either!). Since the end of last month as well, Fernando Alonso has not only broken the 600,000 follower barrier, but he has also broken the 700,000 follower barrier, so Alonso making very large strides. I think Alonso will overtake Hamilton soon and will very quickly become the second current Formula 1 driver to break the one million barrier. Meanwhile, Alonso’s team-mate Felipe Massa broke the 100,000 follower barrier, meaning 13 drivers’ on the current grid are now above that mark. There is now a large gap as a result between ‘The Elite Thirteen’ and Vitaly Petrov in 14th.

The up and down positions above is a comparison to their position in the same table last month. As I noted above, Fernando Alonso made significant gains, an increase of over 150,000 in total. Pastor Maldonaldo fell down five places partially due to his fantastic gain in May as a result of his win at the Spanish Grand Prix, while Sergio Perez benefited well from his podium in Canada. Further down the chart, Narain Karthikeyan moved up five positions (although I am not sure exactly why!) while Daniel Ricciardo dropped three places, recording the second smallest gain for June.

After being third last month, Williams tumble down the table, surprising to last! The team only recorded a gain of two thousand followers through June, with all the other teams either staying put or moving up a position as a result.

Obviously that led to a few people guessing who it may be. Which I guess, being Twitter, is to be expected, when you tweet something people respond. Someone asked whether the person in question’s first name began with a ‘T’ or ‘M’. He said “neither“.

Fast forward to last night, and this Daily Mail article written by Charles Sale. For those unaware of who Charles Sale is, he is a writer for the paper who writes daily sports columns covering the latest stories and gossip with ‘inside sources’, so to say.

The article states, specifically, that Simon Lazenby was the person acting drunk on the EasyJet flight. Now, I do not know whether those claims are true or not, Charles Sale is an insider whereas I am not. Therefore his words hold more strength than mine. But what I do not like, is when a member of the Formula 1 paddock, specifically Caterham’s Head of Communications Tom Webb and quashes the entire article, by saying: “Just seen Charlie Sale’s column today. What a complete load of lies. Good to see he’s not on his usual Beeb bash, but check your facts CS.”

Because by tweeting that, it makes it abundantly clear to me, that Lazenby was not the person involved in said incident on Sunday night, and therefore the article is an attempt at smearing and character defamation. The problem, is that the article is now being tweeted and shared with others all over Twitter, I seen one person refer to him as a “prick”. At the end of the day, there are real people, doing their job to the best of their ability. Yes, you can criticise their presenting, or their commentating or whatever may be. But unless you know them personally, you are in absolutely no position to call them a “prick” based on one single article, which, in this case, may not even be true at all.

I thought I would publish this particular blog, to set the record straight and to quash the article written by the Daily Mail which appears to be a smearing campaign, plain and simple. Irrespective of whether I like him or dislike him as presenter of the Sky Sports F1 show, what I do not like is people (or publications) who blatantly write articles, knowing what they are publishing is not strictly true and is only there to smear somebody else.

UPDATE at 19:31 on 26th June: The story has now been removed from the Daily Mail website.

UPDATE at 21:40 on 26th June: The article is back online at the same place.

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